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FIs, FIIs renew buying, Sensex up 53 points to 3325.69

The Bombay Stock Exchange Sensex surpassed the 3300-mark as pivotals gained further smartly on renewed buying support from foreign institutional investors, domestic institutional investors coupled with short covering by operators, pushing the benchmark 30-share index up by 53 points today.

According to marketmen, the FIIs made considerable purchases in Digital Equipment, Essar Steel, Indian Aluminium, Punjab Tractors, Reckitt and Colman and Telco. The domestic institutional investors were also seen buying stocks of fundamentally strong companies.

The securities that hit upper limits of circuit-breakers were DSQ Software, Sun Pharma, Dabur, BPL, Reliance, Wipro, BPCL, HPCL, CRISIL, Astra IDL, Mahindra and Mahindra, McDowell and Titan.

Reflecting the uptrend, the Sensex opened higher at 3302.76 points, touched the day's high of 3351.86 points, a low of 3294.25 points, before closing at 3325.69 points, showing a net gain of 52.98 points from the previous close of 3272.71 points.

The broad-based BSE-100 index also advanced by 27.75 points to 1449.64 points as against the previous close of 1421.89 points.

Trading at the BSE started early at 0930 hrs and ended at 1400 hrs to accommodate a badla (forward deals) session in the evening. The badla session was advanced today due to holidays on Friday and Saturday.

Analysts said that the annualised badla rates are likely to rule marginally higher at 10-12 per cent as against the previous week's 8-9 per cent, indicating a weak spell beginning next week.

The infotech and pharma counters witnessed a more or less firm trend while the petroleum stocks also staged rally on continuous buying support from FIs and FIIs.

Reckitt and Colman from the fast moving consumer goods posted a four per cent gain today while Hindustan Lever Limited dropped marginally.

The BSE-200 and Dollex indices rose further by 6.76 and 2.63 points to 331.29 and 128.81 points as against the previous close of 324.53 and 126.18 points respectively.

The S&P CNX Nifty Index at the National Stock Exchange also rose sharply by 23.10 points to 966.60 points from the previous close of 943.50 points.

Total turnover on the BOLT system was reported during the day was Rs 10.46 billion.

Pentafour Sofware topped the list of turnover by registering the highest turnover of Rs 1.93 billion, followed by Satyam Computers Rs 1.44 billion, Reliance Rs 709.7 million and ITC Rs 629 million.

Other actively traded counters were Ranbaxy (Rs 531.8 million), MTNL (Rs 495.9 million), Tata Tea (Rs 265.4 million), Dr Reddy's (Rs 246.8 million), SBI (Rs 239.8 million), ACC (Rs 204.6 million), Infosys Technologies (Rs 165.4 million), BPL Limited (Rs 165.3 million), Glaxo (Rs 158.9 million), L&T (Rs 157.7 million) and Castrol India (Rs 148.3 million).

UNI

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